The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green.’

‘Do not spoil the wonder with haste!

He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.’

Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend. It can be so, sometimes.

Yet twice blessed is help unlooked for, and never was a meeting of friends more joyful.’ And

In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him.